Life's weird

Funny weird when 2 people from opposite spectrums start dating each other
Odd weird when the most bizarre news gets reported (Lim Goh Tong and his wreaths?!)
Sad weird when the most unexpected people fall ill
Incomprehensible weird when bad things happen to good people who love God



"The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense."
-- Tom Clancy

Eat and be merry

I hope it's because I look really thin (haha, which I am not) that I keep getting food sent to me...

Because my Oz grandparents are going back to Malaysia for holidays next week, they are loading me up with food. I just got prawns and beehoon and chicken and bak kut teh delivered to me yesterday....and today I have 2 tubs of take away and hungry jacks (burger king) delivered to me again. And so, although I just have had a full lunch, I am enjoying a grilled chicken burger with cheese.

from the balcony

Eat

Chopsticks high up in the air; ready to pounce.
Echoes of "Chiak, chiak, chiak!*" play on and on.
The race is for the swiftest. Unsuspecting youngsters beware.....

Repeated shakes of head and numerous protests do not stop the influx of food on the plate. Save from physically lifting my plate of the table, nothing I do can stop more food from coming my way. Resisting one grandmother is hard enough. Trying to stop 2 grandmothers and a grandfather from ladling even more noodles on my full plate is almost impossible. And it is pure rudeness to put anything on your plate back to the main plate. So if anything touches your plate; it's yours.
Don't get me wrong; as a poor student I welcome free yumchas but non stop eating for 1-2 hours stretches my stomach lining a little to far.

After a while I learn a strategy; to eat as slow as possible and to never leave my plate empty because food will magically plop on my plate if there's space.

Chinese and food go together. Our typical greeting for "how are you?" is "have you eaten?"
I can almost guarantee, in a typical conversation between a Chinese parent and child on the phone, one of the 1st things would be to ask "have you eaten?" & "what did you eat?"

It may seem out of place in our age of glorying slimness but I guess in my grandparents' generation, I love yous were not spoken out loud. But rather, in the settings of poverty; giving their children that piece of meat while eating vegetables themselves was the way of saying I love you. And one can always know who was the favourite child by seeing who got ladled out the biggest piece of chicken drumstick.



So I guess it's a privilege and an honor to be fed.
& thankfully, my M'sian grandmother whom I've not seen for a few months didn't say "Pui liaw.....*" (as it is the custom to comment how fat/thin/tan/fair one is)

*chiak=hokkien for eat
*pui liaw=hokkien for you've become fatter

Which angle are you looking from?

As proof of my procrastination, I've read lots of NON-Medical books. (Which I will pay dearly if I fail my OSCE+Viva & not go back to Malaysia)

These 2 books present history; more specifically Israel's birth after WW2 from two different perspectives.

Golda Meir was Israel's 1st woman prime minister; a staunch Zionist.
Elias Chacour is a Palestinian Bishop.

Golda Meir writes about her life; the struggles as a young child living in poverty in America, her migration to a newly born Israel, the difficulties faced in a young country with not much infrastructure, lots of suspicion from their surrounding neighbours and the Yom Kippur war (which was a tactical surprise attack from Egypt and Syria on a "holy & rest" day for Israel). Clearly she was a formidable woman and from what she writes, you get the idea that Israel was a young country constantly under threat. And who can forget the reason Israel was created in the 1st place; to create a country where the displaced Jews who suffered under Hilter could call home.

Elias Chacour writes also about his life; running around the lush orchards of Galilee as a young boy, seeing the valleys Jesus himself must have walked, how the new Israel military evicted his whole village from their houses, how his family lost their orchards and almost their lives and how he chose to return to Israel from Europe. His story gives voice to a forgotten group of people, those who equally deserve the rights to a home of their own, people who have lived in the same land for generations, only to wake up and be called foreigners after a UN resolution.

Everyone has a side to the story.
And often times, no one is wrong.

How unique and how much more understanding we will have if only we get to hear the other side of the story. Which is why I think Clint Eastwood's take on the battle of Iwo Jima really smart!
(he filmed 2 different films about the same battle; one in Japanese to tell the story from the Japanese perspective, the other from the American perspective...and I can't believe I watched a war movie just because I wanted to see how he did it..! )


One day perhaps a dual story will be told by God; from His perspective and from mine.
But for now, it's time to stow away my side of the story.

Despite the calories...

...vanilla ice-cream mixed with peanut butter is tops

Thank you

It's almost a year.
Thank you, Lord.


Thank you.

Deja-vu?

I guess sometimes we give certain people in the bible a bad rap. Because we know the progression and ending of the bible stories, it's easy to comment that so and so should have had more faith or that he shouldn't have done that etc. But I've realized that if I was in the thick of some of the situations described, I would have reacted the same way; if not worst.

Which is why in the initial glance, the disciples' reaction to Jesus' remark to give the 4000 people something to eat in Mark 8:1-10 hardly surprising. If I were one of them, I would have said the same words, "But where in this remote place can anyone get enough bread to feed them?" Plus, this was in the days pre-Carrefour (or insert your favourite hypermart) where people made their own bread and even if there were shops, none would have been able to come up with 4000 loaves immediately. Of course, the place was remote as well and the disciples weren't exactly swimming in money either.

Yet, if we go back just 2 chapters before, an almost identical scene with 5000 men was recorded in Mark 6:30-44. Again, it was a remote place, with 5000 mouths* to feed. But Jesus performed a miracle and feed all with 12 basketfuls left over.
I don't know about you, but if I actually witnessed someone miraclously multiplying 5 loaves and 2 fish to feed 5000, it wouldn't be something I'd forget for a long time!

And if we tie the two passages together, then it becomes clear that the disciples' remark and lack of faith in Mark 8:4 uncalled for. After all, they have seen Jesus feed an even larger crowd. Didn't it occur to them that He could repeat the same miracle? And it was not as if a long time had passed between the two scenes, it was just 2 chapters away!

I've never looked at both passages this way and the deduction of the disciples' reaction humbled me because I see myself in them. I guess I've been lacking trust in God and it hit me when I was reading an email from a junior about PMS as my thoughts were suddenly transported back to sem5. I was anxious, uncertain yet God came through for me.

God has been faithful before, why won't He be faithful now? He multiplied and fed 5000, why can't I trust that He can repeat the same thing and fed 4000?
Of course, the circumstances are a little more tricky and more grave now, yet...if He cared even for my little whims, surely He cares for even bigger issues.



*To be technical, Mark 6:30-44 records 5000 men. Along with the supporting passage in Matthew 14:13-21, 5000 does not include women and children, which means the total number fed that day was even higher

The series: KRC

KRC in Kings Cross; it's a clinic right above the fire station.
It was an eye opening experience. Kind of miss the place

The series: The War Memorial Hospital

Cool huh? Looks like a resort!

The series: The bookshop

The series: The baking spree

Had friends over for Sunday tea.

The series: The Women

The Ong/Oon sisters lunch

The series: The beach